SWAT teams and hosts of federal agencies would descend upon anyone doing this today, but it was barely worthy of a parental reprimand during the time and place where I was growing up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. There was an old gravel pit behind one of my uncle's houses, a ways behind it, so that there was some woods between the house and the gravel pit. That seemed like just the ticket for a safe place to make bombs when my cousins and I were twelve and thirteen. We didn't have any books on the art of bomb making, and of course we couldn't look it up online, so we just did what made sense to us at the time. We tried gasoline in any number of containers, with fuses coming from holes that were sealed with wax or tape. Some of these worked better than others, and we were able to accomplish some nice fires, but no actual explosions from the gasoline. In those days, we could buy cherry bombs, M-80s, and other types of firecrackers across the border in Canada, and it was usually no problem getting them back into the country. Kids could also cross the border and back without difficulty too, as long as we were with someone old enough to drive. We even brought bags full of fireworks back to Michigan when we went to Canada on a school trip. At the border, someone from the border patrol would ask if we were bringing any fireworks or explosives and, as long as you said no, they'd let you through. In the event that you are unfamiliar with such childhood toys, cherry bombs and M-80s carried a lot of power as they were, easily enough to blow mailboxes up. But we also tried to enhance the oomph power of the actual explosives that we had, by sealing them into cans and bottles, wrapping them tightly in tape, taping several of them together, and placing them into pipes. We even immersed some of them in water, which was fun but didn't produce anything in the way of an enhanced explosion. Tightly wrapping a regular firecracker with tape would produce a louder noise, and of course the more explosives you might tape together, the explosive power was enhanced exponentially. But the best results came from sealing a cherry bomb or M-80 into a short length of pipe. Enough so that we got my uncle's attention once. He watched the next several set of bomb attempts, then admonished us not to set the woods on fire, but didn't even bother to tell our parents about it. Today, we'd have federal agencies competing to see who could lock us up for the greatest number of years and, of course, I'd still be on a no-fly list. Back then, it was just a way to pass the summer.
When I worked at the dry ice plant we sometimes would have a breakdown. Some of these lasted the whole shift. We were supposed to do clean up, but more often we would play poker or just screw around. Not being a card player, I once took a piece of pipe about 10 inches long with threads on one end. I found a cap that would screw on, which I had first drilled a hole in. In my truck was a box of M-80's. So, some of us lashed the pipe to a cement block placed on the loading dock, loaded the M-80 into the pipe, fuse protruding through the hole in the cap. A round headed bolt served as our shot. At the end of the parking lot was a junk semi trailer. We pointed the weapon at the trailer and lit the fuse. It went off with a most satisfying "BLAM". Not only that, but the bolt went through one side of the trailer. Thank God our manager never knew what went on there at nights.